


Gaming Partners

by LeaderPinhead



Series: Sasazuka's Route [1]
Category: Collar x Malice (Visual Novel)
Genre: Gaming, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:14:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25208299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeaderPinhead/pseuds/LeaderPinhead
Summary: In which, Enomoto thinks playing games with Ichika and Sasazuka was a good idea. Sasazuka is not amused, and Ichika is just confused.
Series: Sasazuka's Route [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826230
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	Gaming Partners

Ichika wasn’t sure how she had ended up in this situation. She had left work with the intention of joining Sasazuka at the office to discuss the case. Enomoto had answered her greeting, and things got a little blurry after that. Now, she was on one couch next to Sasazuka with a game controller clutched between both hands. The screen in front of her was split into three sections, and she only knew which one was her character because it was the only one spinning in a circle.

“You cheating seaweed bastard!”

“It’s not my fault you have an attention span of a flea.”

Ichika blinked. In that split second, her screen went red, and the camera panned to the player model running away from her. Sasazuka looked almost bored as he maneuvered his character towards Enomoto’s newly revived character. “Stop camping in the corner of the map.”

Ichika blinked again as she respawned. She tentatively nudged the joystick with her thumb, and her character jolted forward. Enomoto shouted as Sasazuka deftly knifed him in the back and went on his merry. “Stop targeting me!”

“Idiot. You’re the only other player.”

Ichika sighed and looked down at her controller. She had never bought into the video game craze in her childhood, and neither had Kazuki. The buttons on a game controller were as foreign to her as the code flowing across Sasazuka’s computer screen behind them. She pressed one button that made her character jump. She jumped again and spun the joystick. At least she knew how to make her character do a jump spin. Progress was progress.

Sasazuka clicked his tongue and knifed her in the back the same way he had done Enomoto. “Children with horrible mic quality are better than you two.”

“Oh, yeah!” Enomoto leaned forward, his fingers jabbing at the buttons of his controller. He hollered as he nailed a headshot on Sasazuka. Ichika respawned and jumped her way around the building they were trapped inside. “How does that feel!”

“You tell me.” Sasazuka’s character spawned again, juggling its knife from hand to hand. He turned a corner and threw his knife at Enomoto. Red filled Enomoto’s screen, and the younger man gapped as Sasazuka danced across his body. “A headshot with a knife is more impressive.”

Enomoto groaned and slumped back into the cushions. He sighed and rubbed the eye beneath his eyepatch. “Man, I thought this would be a good way to kill some tension right now, but you manage to suck the fun out of everything. Hoshino, have you even managed to get a kill?”

Ichika shook her head and spun her character around. “No, I don’t know how to shoot.”

Silence descended over them, and Ichika only realized they were staring at her when both of their characters on screen stopped moving. She shrugged in response to Enomoto’s gaping mouth and Sasazuka half-lidded eyes. “I don’t play games, and no one explained the controls to me.”

Enomoto croaked, and his cheeks reddened. Sasazuka reached over and tapped one of the triggers on the back of her controller. The muted _ratatata_ of virtual bullets echoed in the quiet room. “Idiot. Who agrees to play a game when they don’t know the controls?”

Ichika tapped the bumper herself and hummed. She glanced down at Enomoto’s and Sasazuka’s screens and began guiding her character towards them. At least she had managed to memorize most of the map from her aimless wandering. “I figured a method of trial-and-error would work.”

“Do you know how to do anything?”

“I can run and jump.”

Enomoto snorted and slapped a hand over his mouth as if to stifle his laughter. Sasazuka sighed and took up his controller once more. “Run and jump off the roof. You’ll have at least have a kill then.”

“That’s rude.”

Enomoto cackled behind his hand. Sasazuka took the opportunity to knife Enomoto again. Ichika turned down a hallway just in time to see the act on her screen. “I shouldn’t be surprised you two are as terrible at this as everything else. I would have been better off watching the status bar of the encrypt—”

Ichika tapped her trigger and hopped her way over Sasazuka’s body. Enomoto’s body shook his couch as Sasazuka froze, staring wide-eyed at the countdown to respawn. He recovered quickly and scowled as he chased after her. “Don’t get so cocky from one lucky sh—”

Ichika turned the corner and pulled the trigger again. Enomoto howled in laughter as Sasazuka screen went dark red again. He pumped his fist and didn’t react when Sasazuka knifed his motionless character. “Get ‘em, Hoshino!”

“I have a score now.”

“Shut up, stupid cat.”

Ichika met him again and pulled her trigger. She pouted as she missed, and the edges of her screen turned a dull red when he landed an attack. She lived though and turned to pull the trigger again. Sasazuka grunted, and Ichika could hear the buttons on his controller clicking. Enomoto laughed as their two characters danced around the screen. “Press the other trigger to knock him back! Now, take the headshot!” Enomoto whooped as Ichika followed his instruction. “All right, Hoshino!”

Ichika giggled a bit Enomoto’s enthusiasm. Sasazuka hissed beside her and tossed the controller on the coffee table. He stood and headed back to his desk. “If you put so much energy in your own case, you might have actually made progress by now.”

“Oi, Takeru, don’t be such a sore loser.” Enomoto pulled his fan from his pocket with a flourish. He grinned at Ichika despite Sasazuka’s derisive grunt. “Looks like Takeru forfeited the match. How does it feel to win your first game, Hoshino?”

Ichika glanced at the screen and realized that Enomoto’s score was set to one. Sasazuka’s was in the double-digits, making her three total kills look pitiful. “I don’t think—”

“Oi, idiot, go get some donuts.”

Enomoto’s grin quickly turned into a scowl. Ichika placed her controller on the table as he leaped to his feet. “Huh? You think just because you’re better at games that you can use me as your errand boy?”

“You said the lowest score grabs lunch.” Sasazuka glared at Enomoto around his screen. “Be useful for once.”

Enomoto mumbled under his breath, but his protests weren’t as vehement once he was reminded of his own arrangement. Ichika shook her head when he asked her preference, and he slumped his way out the office soon afterwards. Ichika wiggled her fingers, finding them stiffer than she anticipated, and eased her way over to the Sasazuka’s desk. She grabbed the chair from Enomoto’s desk and sat next to him. He never looked away from his screen as his fingers flew across the keyboard.

“Thanks for letting me get a few points.” Sasazuka never paused. Ichika hummed and watched the string of code fly across his computer screen. “I figured I would go grab lunch anyways unless you needed me for something else.”

“The idiot should be used when he’s doing nothing else.”

Ichika shrugged, feeling no comment was worth sharing on Enomoto’s progress. She only knew from vague comments from both Sasazuka and Yanagi about how he was doing on his case. “Still, it was kinda fun when I figured out the controls.”

“I’m not rewarding you for something so simple.” Sasazuka’s eyes flashed towards her. “No matter how much you wag your tail.”

“I’m not a dog!”

Sasazuka snorted and tapped away at his keyboard. “Don’t just agree to things without knowing anything about them. That’s how the idiot gets taken advantage of.”

Ichika tilted her head and blinked. She smiled a second later. “You’re a good partner, Sasazuka.”

“Your tail is wagging too much now.” Ichika pursed her lips to respond and found a piece of candy dropped on the desk in front of her. Sasazuka acted as if the candy hadn’t come from his own pocket. “Anything new develop with Soda?”

Ichika briefly debated whether to reject the candy before deciding it would be better to simply accept it. The wrapper crinkled as she unwrapped it before she answered Sasazuka’s question. She still didn’t understand his need to feed her, but at the very least, she was glad to know that she wouldn’t be judged to harshly for her lack of gaming skills.

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline for this isn't very specific, but it happens before Ichika learns about Sasazuka's past. I can picture Enomoto using games as an excuse not to pursue his case and dragging one of the others into a round, mainly Sasazuka, who would thoroughly thrash him.


End file.
